Assembly of premoulded soles and attachment for sewing machine permitting soling of said sole to an article of footwear



Sept. 15,1970

WS 5 Ti OS 3 O8 TFh W 3 EF 04 G. MAUDOUIT ASSEMBLY OF PREMOULDED SOLES AND ATTACHMENT FOR PERMITTING SOLING OF SAID SOLE TO AN ARTICLE Filed March 15, 1968 Filed March 15, a

Sept. 15,1910 MAUDOUIT 52 124 ASSEMBLY OF PREMOULDED'SOLES AND ATTACHMENT SEWING MACHINE PERMI NG SOLING OF SAID SOLE TO AN ARTI OF TWEAR 4 S cs-Sheet 2 4 ...0 new a l mne 8 A% MW& 6% 3 N O 9 OUIT ATTACHMENT FOR SEWI TO AN ARTICLE 0? F 4 Sh Sept. 15, 1970 D ASSEMBLY OF PREMOULDED SOLES AND PERMITTING SOLING 0F SAID SOLE Filed March 15, 1968 FIG. 5

Sept. 15, 1970 I unou 3,528,184

ASSEMBLY OF PREMOULDED SOLES AND ATTACHMENT FOR SEWING MACHINE PERMITTING SOLING 0F SAID SOLE TO AN ARTICLE OF FOOTWEAR Filed March 15, 1968 4 Sheets-Sheet 4 FIG. 7

United States Patent 3,528,184 ASSEMBLY OF PREMOULDED SOLES AND ATTACHMENT FOR SEWING MACHINE PERMITTING SOLING 0F SAID SOLE TO AN ARTICLE OF FOOTWEAR Gabriel Maudouit, Blanquefort, France, assignor to Ets. Maudouit & Fils, Blanquefort, France, a company Filed Mar. 15, 1968, Ser. No. 713,333 Claims priority, applicatiggslirance, June 30, 1967,

Int. or. $43]; 13/00 US. Cl. 36-25 4 Claims ABSTRACT or THE DISCLOSURE The present invention relates to a pre-moulded sole which can be sewn all around to the upper of an article of footwear and to an attachment for sewing this sole and the heel to said upper.

It often occurs that soles which are just glued to the uppers of footwear become unstuck because of heat or because the glue is defective.

To avoid this, in certain fabrications the gluing of the sole is replaced by sewing, but the same is made only on the forward part of the sole and sometimes only at the front of it, the rest of the sole remaining subject to unstieking. It is in effect because the heel is too thick to be sewn at the same time as the sole.

To partially sew, as indicated above, soles to uppers of footwear, the prior art has used sewing machines constituted essentially, on the one hand, of a fork provided with a guiding roller, and, on the other hand, of a vertical needle which comes to grasp between the arms of said fork and through the sole a double yarn from above, and, on the other hand, of a horizontal hook or divider which during upward movement of the vertical needle grasps, in its turn, one of the strands of the double thread, and and also of a circular netting needle whose hook drives the uppermost yarn from inside the loop of the lower yarn thus formed by the operation of the vertical needle and of the horizontal divider, the stitch being terminated when the vertical needle comes back through the sole to meet again the lower double yarn.

The present invention relates to an assembly constituted by a sole for an article of footwear which can be sewn to the upper along the entire periphery including the heel, and to an attachment for an ordinary sewing machine permitting such sewing with such a machine.

The sole according to the invention is characterized by a continuous groove, moulded straight on the front part of the sole helically or in gimlet fashion on the flanks of the arch support and obliquely on the heel which makes it possible to sew said sole along its entire periphery with the upper of the article of footwear.

The attachment for securing to a sewing machine to permit rapidly and inexpensively sewing of the previously described sole with the upper is characterized by the fact that the horizontal fork arm and the guiding roller are replaced by a rod of the same general shape but terminat 3,528,184 Patented Sept. 15,, 1970 ing by a banked fork which engages around the edge of the groove which is performed in the sole during moulding and compresses and curves inwardly said edge while the vertical needle goes through the sole to bring back the lower double yarn; during the return movement down up of the vertical needle, said rod rises rearwardly while a hook in the shape of a banked U, possibly guided into an oblique tube limiting its movement, comes in its turn to maintain the sole while the horizontal divider and the hook of the netting needle cooperate to form the loop and the stitch; at the end of the stitch, during the downward movement of the vertical needle, said rod by lowering itself forwardly simultaneously determines the length of said stitch and compresses the sole for the following stitch.

The sole according to the invention with its heel and its arch support made in one piece can be made of any material, rubber, plastic and in all sizes and constitutes a new product. The rod with a banked fork and the banked U-shaped tube constitute separately and in their combination to obtain the desired result, new means.

The present invention is an advantageous substitute, from the point of view of robustness, to gluing.

The various oblique movements, horizontal or vertical or horizontal components of movements of the tube and of the banked forked rod, are obtained by synchronizing with the movements of the vertical needle, the horizontal divider and of the netting needle through use of a gear movement which does not form part of the present invention.

The sole and the attachment for the sewing machine will be better understood at the lecture of the following description given by way of non-limiting example and of the accompanying drawing in which can be seen:

1FIG. 1 is a view of an ordinary machine for sewing so es.

FIG. 2 is a view taken along arrow F of a horizontal divider for a vertical needle.

FIG. 3 is a view of the device according to the invention, the vertical needle being in its upper position.

FIG. 4 is a perspective view of the attachment.

FIG. 5 is a perspective view of the attachment according to the invention in lowered position of the vertical needle.

FIG. 6 is a cross sectional view of a sole according to the invention.

FIG. 7 is an underneath view of the sole.

Referring first to FIGS. 6 and 7 there can be seen the sole S having a toe portion, a heel portion and an intermediate portion interconnecting said toe and heel portions and which is constituted by its arch support 26 and its heel 25 the inner surface of which has various shapes such as grooves 28 which can be placed by squares, circles, teeth or striations. On the outer surface of sole S peripheral groove 24 is made during moulding and extends along the entire contour of said sole. It begins straight and perpendicular to the general plane of the sole along the toe portion and continues still straight and perpendicular to the sole under the balls of the feet at d. Along support g starting from point e at the intermediate portion it follows a twisting helical path and inclines obliquely inwardly and upwardly around the heel 25 in the heel portion It all around said heel up to c.

It is thus possible to sew the support and the heel in the same way as the rest of the sole with a first assembly and in a single operation. Sewing occurs on a plane horizontal to point e at the beginning of support g and then in gimlet fashion at g to b then effected obliquely up to the junction c.

The new product constituted by the sole according to the invention cannot be confused with vamped soles which overlap the upper level of the first mounting thus covering a part of the lower plane and whose coating can be sewn by another process.

It is by referring to the other figures that will be described in the device making possible the sewing of the sole according to this invention.

Referring first to FIGS. 1 and 2, it is seen that the assembly consists essentially of a fork 1 having two arms 1a and 1b which can be provided with a small guiding roller 2 freely mounted in a vertical shaft, a support 3 on which is passed the shoe which is to be sewn, and which is constantly urged along the guiding roller 2. The fork is made rigid with a support 4 which can be separately or simultaneously driven vertically (arrow V and arrow W).

The assembly comprises additionally a needle 5 provided with a hook 6 which also can be driven vertically in one direction or the other; and of a hook or divider 7 which can be driven horizontally in one or the other direction (arrow X). The assembly also comprises a device functioning as a rotating neeting needle, and constituted by a ring 8 in which rotates according to arrow Y a movable crown 9 having hook 10 while the above thread or yarn 11 issues from a fixed arm 12 through opening 13. The lower thread 14 which needle 5 will grab issues from a lower bobbin through foot 3.

The shoe being positioned on support 3 and the common parts to be sewn in space 15 being able to turn on support 3 guided :by roller 2, needle 5 will go down through this common part to be sewn between arms 1a and 1b of fork 1 to seek the lower thread 14 and will then bring this thread above. It will then be grasped in its forward movement by hook 8 of needle 7 and movable crown 9 will drive in loop 16 (FIG. 2) thus formed, the upper thread 11 which Will be held captive in loop 16 to form the stitch when needle 5 will go down vertically to again seize a certain length of double thread 14.

The device of the invention is adaptable to a sewing machine of known design such as that above described, as can be appreciated by referring to FIGS. 3, 4 and 5.

According to the invention, fork (FIG. 1) has been replaced by a rod 17 which also has a forked extremity 1-8 downwardly opened and whose broach 19 is banked. Similarly it has been added to the machine a tube 20 having a slot 21 in which movesa similarly banked U- shaped member 22 whose branch 23 can at the end of its movement reach the same height as extremity 18 of rod 17.

As in the previous example it is possible to place the shoe on which it is desired to sew a sole on support 3. In said sole S (whose cross section is shown in FIG. 6) there has been preformed upon moulding a groove 24 in which the sewing must be inlaid and which goes around the entire shoe including the heel 25.

When the vertical needle 5 descends to seize the lower thread 14 through the sole the forked part 18 of rod 17 comes to compress and incurve the edge 26 of groove 24 in such a way that said needle 5 can penetrate obliquely in said groove 24. When needle 5 goes up bringing with it the double lower thread 14, rod 17 moves away upwardly to the right (oblique arrow K constituted by movements of arrows V and W in FIG. 1). The remainder of the functioning is strictly identical with that of the previous example with this diiference that rod 17 is substituted in its role of holding the sole when it moves along K, by the banked extremity 23 of the U- shaped member 22 which comes to position itself in lowered position. Rod 17 returns then (arrow L) toward its first position and ensures just like fork 1 (FIG. 1) the desired length of the stitch and positions itself for the following stitch.

What is claimed is:

1. A substantially planar sole for an article of footwear comprising: a toe portion, a heel portion, and an intermediate portion interconnecting said toe and heel portions, means defining a groove extending peripherally around said sole; and wherein said groove extends perpendicularly to the plane of said sole along said toe portion and obliquely extends inwardly along said heel portion.

2. A planar sole according to claim 1; wherein said groove is continuous.

3. A planar sole according to claim 1; wherein said groove extends perpendicularly to the plane of said sole along one side of said intermediate portion and has a varying direction of extension along the other side of said intermediate portion.

4. A planar sole according to claim 3; wherein the portion of said groove extending along said other side of said intermediate portion has a helical path of travel; and wherein the direction of extension of said portion of said groove varies from a direction perpendicular to the plane of said sole at the toe end thereof to a direction obliquely inwardly at the heel end thereof.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,03 8,972 4/ 1936- Watanabe 3632 2,551,885 5/1951 Johnson 36-32 2,640,449 6/ 1953- Ashworth 112--62 3,064,599 11/1962 Fake et a1 112-62 1,497,852 -6/ 1924 Hooper 362.5 2,178,025 10/ 1939 Richter 36-2.5 2,552,943 5/ 1951 Danielius 36-25 X 2,621,426 12/1952 Palmieri 3625 X PATRICK D. LAWSON, Primary Examiner US. Cl. X.R. 11262 

